Two, including 11-year-old, missing after Tawau hunting trip

KOTA KINABALU: A search and rescue operation has been launched to look for two people, including an 11-year-old boy, who have been missing for five days after going out on a hunting trip in Sabah’s east coast Tawau district.

The two were part of a group comprising eight people who went hunting at the forest area near the Usahawan Borneo Burmas plantation on June 24.

A Fire and Rescue Department spokesman said the group broke into several smaller groups while on their excursion in the jungle.

After realising the boy and a fellow hunter, a 33-year-old man, were missing, he said, the others immediately mounted a brief search party but to no avail.

It is uncertain whether the boy and the man were related.

The spokesman said the department launched their search after being alerted to the incident by the police.

“Besides conducting the search, our men are on the ground trying to gather further information to aid the exercise,” he said, when contacted on Thursday (June 29).

In a separate incident, the search for a 31-year-old man who slipped and fell into a river in Kimanis, some 80km from here, entered its second day with no promising signs.

The spokesman said rescuers from the department were conducting a surface search near the riverbank to look for Jebenoh Antonny as well as using boats to scour the river.

It was earlier reported that the Fire and Rescue Department received a report of the incident at 6.17pm on Wednesday (June 28).

The man slipped while trying to wash his legs at the riverside somewhere between Kampung Batu Bandung and Kampung Daingin.